


Like Flying

by nessundorma345 (wastrelwoods)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Ending: Role Reversal, Avenger Loki, Avenger Pepper, M/M, Moral Ambiguity Like Woah, Villain Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-22 13:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2509457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastrelwoods/pseuds/nessundorma345
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Loki takes his literal fall from one life into another as a sort of cosmic sign that there's something to this whole second chances lark. He has a new lease on life, the starring role to a team of celebrated mortal heroes, the worship of the masses, and something tentatively like a place to belong.<br/>For some reason, Tony Stark, supervillain egoist extraordinaire, seems determined to prove to Loki that second chances are not all they are cracked up to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's what I've been chewing on since July, guys. This is the big one. The mother lode. My magnum opus. 
> 
> ...So of course it _would_ be a trope. But at least I do cliché with grace and poise. Or something like that, anyway. 
> 
> Big thanks to the organizers and moderators of Frostiron Bang 2014, and a million thanks to my lovely, talented, and all around good-humored artist, the-dreaming-grass
> 
> Art on her blog here: http://the-dreaming-grass.tumblr.com/tagged/frostiron-bang (there are three!)

_i'm more than a bird, more than a plane, more than some pretty face beside a train_

*

"The truth is," he says, dropping the notecards, because _fuck that_ , he's Tony Stark, he does exactly what he wants and nothing more. And Tony, he's an ambitious guy, he wants power, he wants adoration, worship even, he wants to build a tower to put Babel to shame and plaster his name across the top, in bold. He wants everything and anything, and when that's not enough, he wants to make _more_.

But mostly, he realizes, staring down at this sea of reporters, this mob who wait on his every word, mostly he just really, _really_ wants to have fun, so. So.

Of course he was always going to lie, giving up the game is so not his style, but his anarchist side smarts at the idea of giving all the government suits what they want, and he wants people to want him, but he's a smart guy, he graduated MIT at seventeen. If he wants to be Iron Man, it's gonna have to be on his own terms.

"The truth is we don't know who this Iron Man is," he admits, lies, and relishes the collective gasp. Ten, twenty, twenty-five stock points, watch them go. But hey, this stopped being about Stark Industries and started being about making the world his personal playground a _long_ time ago. "I should be down there with you guys, because we got nothing here, I have to be the honest guy, I'm on a moral high ground kick these days, anyway." Rhodey looks like he might shit himself with the effort of not planting a well-deserved fist in Tony's face. But he knows better, really he does, this is Tony's ship now and he won't hesitate to walk his best friend's ass off the plank at the first sign of mutiny. "I mean, God knows I'd love to be able to stand here and say, yeah, that was me, because that technology?" He coughs, feigning frustration. "Almost on par with us. Almost." Pepper might skin him for that. Well, she's welcome to try, anyway. "But hey, you'll know exactly when I make my own flying suit, and make it _better_ , because it'll have 'Property of Stark Industries' written across the side in the biggest letters I've got space for, what do you say?"

There's a couple of cheers from the crowd, and a lot of cameras flashing, and Tony's pretty sure his nose is broken but hey, last night he pushed the the man he's always considered something better than a father _into the arc reactor_ , like that's the set punishment for touching the one in his chest, and wouldn't he just love to do that again?

Well, he can't kill Stane again. Not until he finds some way to resurrect the dead, which is admittedly on his to-do list but not actually that much of a priority, never mind that it just moved up. But, you know, vigilante justice, blowing up tanks and terrorists and Jerichos until everything they were is nothing but dust? It's pretty appealing. He grins wider.

"There it is, ladies and gents," he says, big finale coming up, and isn't it sweet to watch the cameras flash in a wild frenzy? He's always loved this part. "Iron Man is not my bodyguard. I mean, come on, if there was a suit, _I would be the one in it_ , not some employee with a double identity. At this juncture," he finishes, hitting it home, "all we can determine is that Stark Industries is uninvolved, beyond paying to fix all the infrastructural damage the flash bastard wreaked yesterday. And, in my humble opinion," he adds for good measure, not alone in dragging down the stocks today, "we can probably eliminate Hammer, too."

 _Ta-da_ , he's beyond tempted to say, because that was fantastic, that really was, and he'll just wait here for the Oscar to arrive, thank you very much.

If he had this little mental checklist he's trying to pretend he doesn't have, right about now, he thinks, he'd put a little check mark next to step one.

*

They have his father's cube, these little ants who mill about their farm, never sparing Loki a second glance, not even when they see the manic glint in his eyes and the corpselike pallor of his skin and the way he must seem unreal when viewed from a certain angle.

They have the cube, and Loki knows that it carries the knowledge for which he burns.

His first clear memory since time fractured around him and the bridge shattered under his feet comes with the cool feel of the Tesseract beneath his fingers, like a live wire encased in silk. Quite suddenly, he is fully _there_ , feet firmly planted on the ground, and he laughs silently until he realizes that _he is not alone_. "You probably want to step away from that," says the man currently training an arrow at his head.

Somehow, it never occurs to Loki not to heed his warning.

"The way I see it," says the other, the man with the eyes like steel, tapping his pen idly against the edge of the table. "There's only one thing to be done with you."

Sneering, he leans forward and all but spits, "I suggest you find somewhere _very_ deep to bury me, Agent Coulson."

The archer snorts. The other blinks coolly, wholly undisturbed by his menaces. "I don't want to kill you, Mr. Walker," he corrects, stops tapping the pen with abrupt frankness. "I want to offer you a job."


	2. Chapter One

_i'm just a man in a funny red sheet, looking for special things inside of me_

*

"And the cavalry arrives," drawls the infamous Iron Man, or whatever vile _thing_ he imagines himself to be beneath the armor. "Don't tell me, sweetie, you're here to appeal to my humanity."

Actually, he's a bit fascinating, is Tony Stark, which rather makes Loki hate him more. "I'm not human," he says archly, reclines back into the seat he currently occupies within the penthouse like he owns it, which of course he does not.

A snort. "Mutants. Think that one little x-gene makes you superhuman, but I bet I could _so_ beat you in an arm wrestle." He leans over the back of the seat, smile just visible in Loki's peripheral, lingering at a particularly punchable height.

"With or without your armor?" Which is nowhere in sight, he hopes to remind the mortal, raising a pointed brow.

"Honey, I _always_ have my armor," he refutes, shifting close enough almost to press his mouth directly against the skin behind Loki's ear. His breath is hot, makes Loki's skin crawl, but he allows neither verbal nor physical threat to faze him. And then, abruptly, he pulls back. "Care for a drink?"

"I do hope you aren't trying to stall me."

"No, actually, you're the one stalling me, right? That's why you're here. Unless you actually think you can take me down all by yourself?"

"It would be my pleasure, Mr. Stark," he says, half flirtation and half menace, and stands. Oh, good, he _is_ the taller, that should give him some advantage in addition to the many cards already up his sleeve.

Turning back to Loki with a stopper in one hand and a drink in the other, Tony Stark laughs. "You sure about that drink, Agent Walker?" If Loki actually had a cover to maintain as the Iron Man assumes, then he might be annoyed at the prospective blackmailing thing he's trying to pull.

"I'm not here to drink."

"Are you here to ask me where the Tesseract is?"

It's hardly a difficult leap. Loki skirts the chair and then they are separated by only a few feet and more careful words. "That would depend on whether or not you'll be willing to tell me."

Stark nods, swirls the liquid around his glass like he isn't five minutes from the onset of full-scale war. "You could always ask nicely," he croons, the knowing tilt to his smile telling Loki exactly what he means, and _oh, never_.

Somehow, the distance between them has grown smaller, like two sharks circling. "I. Do not. Beg."

"That sounds like a challenge."

"It really, truly isn't."

"Oh, but you'd look so lovely on your knees, darling."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Loki demurs, trying hard not to admit to himself that this is just a little bit _fun_.

Stark smiles again, a feral smile. "Touché," he sighs, and he's miscalculated something again, hasn't he--

The Drone strikes fast and hard, lighting on Loki's neck and burrowing into his ear with such a ferocious speed that he stumbles back, one hand grasping futilely at the air beside his head. Oh, but it's much worse once it's _inside_ , when he can feel his mind falling synapse by synapse, and that son of a bitch was planning this right from the beginning, of course he was.

Of course, Loki's a quick thinker himself, it's what makes him such an excellent liar. The mind-controlling nanobot ices over with a lightning precision and goes dead even as he recovers his feet. He might grin triumphantly when he reaches up to pull the thing out and crush it under his foot.

"Come now, Stark," he gasps out, nearly bursting into laughter at the confused fury in Stark's eyes. The thrill-seeking part of his hindbrain can't help but hope that he'll get to put that expression on that face again. "That's just dishonest."

"Yeah, well, I'm not really big on rules," he rasps, a jagged edge to his voice, and Loki supposes that's a fair enough way for a supervillain to look at it. And Stark wasn't wrong about how close to hand he keeps that armor, if the speed at which he's metaphorically--and somewhat literally--dressed to kill is any indication. The faceplate snaps shut, distorting his voice into something low and cold. "If you're gonna keep playing my game, Liesmith, you should probably keep that in mind."

_This is not a game,_ he wants to say, but he's not sure he really believes that. _That's borderline challenging me to a battle of wits, you know_ , he almost points out instead, but since he doesn't really know where the line between banter and fraternization falls it also doesn't seem like the best response. "It must be terrible, playing chess with you," is what he finally comes up with, about three seconds before Stark throws him bodily through the window.

At which point, of course, his illusion shatters, though not before falling a few hundred inconvenient and unpleasant feet. The real Loki nearly gives Iron Man whiplash with how quickly he's forced to turn on his heel as the trickster steps out from behind the bar.

"To answer your question, Mr. Stark," he says coolly, "I'm not here to stall you." He dodges a repulsor blast, spins, and kicks a sizeable dent in the side of the armor that doubles Stark over in pain. "I'm here to _avenge_."

*

Because, you see, when they recruited Lucas Walker, alias Liesmith, they gave him a team. A laughable initiative at first, of course, but he had not been _un_ able to find common ground with the ragtag group of mortals he was told to _lead_ and to _protect_. Why, Romanoff could have been his double. Barton's resourcefulness, Banner's rage, their little lost firebird's madness and betrayal, all inspired within Loki something nearly as terrifying as _empathy_. Even golden, shining Rogers was like another Thor, albeit one who looked Loki in the eyes, _as an equal_ , who _listened_ when it was wise to.

It was only natural, therefore, that Loki despise the Avengers and all they stood for. "I work better on my own," he snarled to Coulson's face, when he first learned of the plan.

"A lot of guys say that," he'd replied mildly, "Until they don't have to."

*

Only that doesn't matter any longer, because Phil Coulson is dead.

Or perhaps that makes it matter all the more. It's difficult to say.

*

It's more than slightly harrowing to consider just _how many_ Drones Stark has made of employees, enemies, friends and strangers. It's hard to fight them when Loki remembers freshly the sickening cold of the device hacking into him, taking him out to put something else inside.

Then, one of the Drones has the nerve to _bite_ him, which draws one too many parallels between this battle and the zombie apocalypse, and rather squashes Loki's burgeoning sense of pity.

Strictly speaking, he's a spy rather than a soldier, and it's hard enough to fend off the endless puppets without bringing into play a few of the secrets he'd rather keep hidden -- most notably magic that he can't pass off as a mutation-- and really it's all he can do to keep hold of the Tesseract. He winces at the bite marks in his forearm resignedly and elbows the offending Drone in the windpipe.

There is some consolation in the fact that at least Hulk is enjoying the battle, and Stark is not. Potts isn't, either, but then she never really does, only murmurs to herself and burns things with a distracted air.

Really, Barton might have the worst of it, looking down at every enemy and knowing full well that they are not in control. Which is certainly not to say that they are innocents, because no one is. It's this perspective, this self-delusion to separate murder from self-defense with lies about the greater good that gives them all the strength to fight on.

"We have to clean this up," says Rogers over comms, sending Loki's train of thought to a momentary halt. "The Council's threatening to send in a nuke."

"That may be our only option." Romanoff has to be the one to say it, because Potts and Banner don't have comms, and Barton doesn't like it, and Loki is thinking about the futility of absolution and trying to muster up enough belief in the inferiority of mankind, because otherwise he'll think about how that bomb will take their lives, and a thousand Drones, and a million civilians, and _every single one of them will die in vain_.

Loki nearly died in vain once, and he's damned if he's going to let it happen again.

The idea has lingered from the very beginning, eliminated primarily for unnecessary risk and costliness. But Loki's not exactly the hero sort, he understands how to choose the lesser of two evils. "I can think of a better option," he tells the rest, and the silence is skeptical.

"Liesmith," the Captain barks, "What are you planning?"

Loki smiles at no one when he drops the cube at his feet. "Following some adage about cutting off the head of the snake. Perhaps you've heard it."

"I've heard something very different about hydras," he answers, and is that worry in Rogers' voice? Oh dear, but how _touching_.

"To put it quite clearly, then," he rephrases, "I'm going to destroy the Tesseract. Wish me luck," he adds cheerily, then disconnects the comm and turns to meet his doom.

He takes a last deep breath before the plunge, as if it will help.

She's taken rather a shine to him, the cube, which is likely the only reason he succeeds in blasting it to so much glowing shrapnel with all the power he can muster before she can turn him to radioactive ash. The initial force throws him back into the border of the force field he's using to contain the explosion. There's blood and light and a frankly excruciating pain that doesn't in the least bit abate when he loses consciousness, and Loki had been so _hoping_ that it wouldn't quite kill him, but life is full of disappointments like that, isn't it? he thinks before the dark swallows him up.

*

The puppets regain control almost immediately, he's told later, and the day is won in fairly short order.

It takes nearly twice as long to convince the obtuse band of world leaders that blowing Manhattan sky high is no longer strictly necessary, and that any infrastructural damage already done to the city is neither the fault of the former Drones -- now undergoing intensive, and in most cases largely unsuccessful, therapy -- nor of the team.

In all the commotion, they admit, it's probably far too easy for Tony Stark to just slip away.

*

"You've been holding out on us, Agent Walker," someone says over the buzzing in his ears. The hospital lights are blinding, but at least the mortals make a fantastic array of analgesics.

The high off the painkillers is largely responsible for Loki's answering burst of disproportionate laughter because his secret identity's shot to hell but he saved the world and it's a fairly satisfying thing to realize, right behind _not dead, again_ on his list of reasons to laugh a little. "Don't worry," he murmurs, and sees the Director's monocular visage slide into view with something that's probably meant to be menace. "I'm told that you grow used to it."

*

All of which is to say that, at least in the very beginning, it had been very clear where they stood. There was a line--Loki knew well-- and if it hardly mattered which side was good and which was not, he and Tony Stark stood on opposite sides of this line.

Not moral absolutes, nothing so black and white. And yet it was a simple arrangement: people like him did whatever they wanted, and people like Loki did whatever _needed_ to be done.

It was all perfectly obvious, and purely logical, if a bit dull, and really very easy to understand.

_Was_.


	3. Chapter Two

_i can't stand to fly: i'm not that naive, i'm just out to find the better part of me_

*

 _Probationary member_ , Loki scoffs silently, and glowers at his reflection in the rain-soaked glass of the window. He's starting to develop a slight aversion to windows, or possibly to the all-consuming panic that falling freely stirs up in him, and the neat reminder of shattering glass at his back. It's something he's not simpleminded enough to consider a sign of weakness, that constant fear worrying at the edge of his thoughts, but it's hardly a welcome phenomenon.

No, what really smacks of impotency is his probationary standing with _his own team_ , a lingering grief for his former mentor-cum-friend, and the fact that destroying the Tesseract has managed to neatly cripple his magic for the entire foreseeable future. Neither the means nor the opportunity are afforded him to rejoin his erstwhile pastime of saving the world, and it's _infuriating_.

"Hel's teeth," he hisses to the reflection, whose answering snarl is distorted into a blurry impressionist swirl. Rain makes Loki tetchy as well, he's not above admitting it. He's turning away, sipping at his mug of too-hot tea with a murderous air when all the lights flicker off.

Budget deficit or no, it had still been a bloody idiotic idea to appropriate the abandoned tower of a supervillain and refurbish it as any sort of living quarters, and now Loki is going to end up horribly murdered so that some higher-up can skim an extra million off the top _not_ spent on security. Norns, he's going to die clad in naught but cottony Midgardian sleepwear. The sheer _embarrassment_. Loki glares defiantly into the dark, brandishing his scorching beverage with a mixture of interest and impatience.

"I'd offer you that drink again," Tony Stark drawls from an entirely unanticipated direction, and Loki stiffens, "But some bastards in dark suits cleared out my liquor cabinet."

It's not precisely that they didn't expect him to come back, it's more the fact that there is _some_ measure of tower security and Stark _had_ seemed otherwise occupied. "You cannot be here."

"Why, 'cause I'm on TV blowing up Hoover Dam right now? Honey, you should _know_ I've got more than one suit." He grins, and Loki is wary of his casual openness. In his experience it tends to mean that the informer doesn't plan on letting him survive hearing their intel. "Besides, it's my name on the tower."

"Not for a long while."

"On the deed. Fine. Semantics."

"You're a fugitive from the law, Stark." He takes another narrow-eyed sip of tea. "Which does beg the question of why you're here at all."

"Darling, I could ask you the same thing," he says, leers, and Loki takes a step back because he feels phantom glass shatter under the weight of Stark's gaze. He swallows, misses the moment when his smile twists into something more sadistic and calculating. "What are you doing here, _Agent?_ "

"I live here, I'm sorry to say." He doesn't quite understand Stark's endgame, which is slightly disconcerting.

"Why are you here, while your team is getting their collective asses thrown into last week on the other side of the country? Why are you here, playing Nick Fury's lapdog instead of spouting that horse shit about great power and great responsibility? Why are you _here, alive_ , when doing what you did to the Tesseract should have reduced you to so many charred meaty bits?" He's too close, revelling in this upper hand of his and yet clearly unsatisfied. Loki intends to keep him that way. "Cause I gotta say, I'm intrigued."

The urge to deadpan 'classified' is almost overwhelming for a moment, but _choking, shattering, falling falling falling_ is replaying in his mind's eye, again, so he settles for the truth, raising both eyebrows to a terrifyingly condescending tilt. "Why should I tell you what you already know?"

"Maybe I want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth." He smiles wider, and Loki just _knows_ what he's going to ask, _of course he is_. "Hey, speaking of horses--"

"Myth," he grinds out, from between clenched teeth, and now he's really thinking about pouring the remnants of the scalding tea down the inside of that suit, to see what would happen.

Stark laughs, eyes crinkling up in a genuine and deceptively innocent amusement. "You're the real deal, huh?" He's circling, Loki can feel it, and it's making him tenser yet. " _Loki of Asgard_ ," he preens, and prods a finger into his chest, testing to see if this one will melt away--Loki can't, but his fight instincts are more than equal to his flight ones, he's focusing in on every weak point in the armor, Stark's exposed face, the glowing blue center of the chestpiece he's been briefed on more times than he can recall. "I gotta say, though, as a devout atheist myself, I'm still not opposed to making a god beg."

"Oh, this nonsense again?" Loki sighs, "One might almost suspect you of overcompensating for some--"

A second later he has a little less ready of an air supply, that blasted tea mug slipping from his grip as both of his hands reach up to claw at the metal one tightening around his throat. "I could do this all day," says Stark, voice dipping to something feral, almost wolf-like. "So please, finish that thought. Don't let me stop you."

Words in slightly short supply, Loki settles for digging his fingers into the wrist joint until it buckles, then wrenching his neck from the iron grip as Stark pulls away reflexively. "I'm on a bit of a tight schedule, myself," he coughs, gives it a moment for the realization to sink in. Which is about the time the alarms start blaring.

"Sly bastard," whistles Stark, almost...appreciatively.

"The slyest."

"I could just snap your neck and run, you realize."

"Yes, if you put your back into it, but you're not here to kill me, are you?"

"Sly _and_ clever, aren't we, Fantastic Mr. Fox?" He steps back, crushes the mug under one heavy boot as the faceplate lowers. "I'll answer that someday, maybe."

He's gone by the time the first backup agent arrives, of course, which is a bit of an inconvenience since he also took the liberty of wiping the video. Still, there's not many people who can put a bruise on Loki's neck, so the whole debacle does warrant a debriefing in the end. Just his luck.

*

Steve Rogers doesn't pull punches, with Loki.

Neither does Romanoff, but he himself dances just shy of overcautious when sparring with her, because even if she's one of the best she is merely _mortal_ , a fact which only infuriates her when she is reminded of it. Loki prefers to hone other skills against Natasha--they've developed a habit of cornering each other in hallways to toss sharp words and spin tales of mixed truth and lie and see how accurately the other can decipher what is false. Barton lives in fear of this game of theirs, not least because the others are so often caught up in it.

It's odd, living with the team, even when he is 'exempted' from fighting alongside them. Ordinarily, Loki would spend endless stretches alone, but even this vast tower begins to feel like a prison far too soon. And so he spars with Steven, and with Natasha, and sends someone else to be sure that Banner eats, because Banner doesn't like him, and runs verbal circles around Barton when he's feeling particularly clever, and his little firebird...

Well, he does enjoy Pepper's company, changeable as it runs. Loki himself will never admit to having picked her for the team himself, but he suspects the rest of them might know anyhow, even though they don't fully understand.

The thing is, Pepper Potts is mad, wholly and unreservedly. A combination of a jilting by someone she had trusted with her life, and a slapdash scrambling of her mind by an early Drone prototype which inadvertently awoke the healing center of her brain and mutated her into something not unlike the dark elves' cursed. She doesn't pull punches either, even at her most lucid. "You're a lot like Tony, you know."

Loki chokes on his next breath, turning to her with brows drawn in comically. " _What_?" Her eyes are glazed but not, for the moment, glowing, so he judges it reasonably safe to place a hand on her arm, search her face for a lie. "How do you mean?" He feigns a calm detachment.

"Well, you like sex, and Captain America," she begins, and he has to suppress a snort, "And you treat attention like it's a drug, don't pretend we weren't watching news coverage of you and that cube half an hour ago--"

"That was most certainly not..." he reddens, slightly, "I was strategizing--"

"And," she says, speaking over him, resting her head on his shoulder--apparently his skin is cool to the touch and it feels good-- "You lie. You lie all the time, only Tony used to talk so much that you couldn't even tell which part of it was lying." Pepper's voice is more strained, heavy, and he feels her lapsing back into her own thoughts, to be lost for days or longer. "You lie to me, too."

"No," he swears solemnly, shifting her fragile weight until her back rests against his chest. "Not to you, little phoenix."

"You lied about your--"

"About my name. Yes, I know. I wanted you to like me, you and SHIELD and the world." Honesty hurts so that it's easy to remember why he so often chooses to lie. "I did bad things, terrible things, so many that I forget to regret them, at times, and I thought to start over." It might be pleading, this tone of voice, but he's made no promises about lying to himself.

"Tony did that, too," Pepper murmurs, barely audible, and he knows she's gone, for the present.

*

Loki--let it never be said he does not know his own faults--lacks patience, and so he has never been one for the slow process of healing. He limps, and curses, and ignores the screaming marrow of his bones until the protest grows so loud he cannot shut it out, and drowns the complaints with a haze of numbness. Various members of his not-team take time to spare him looks of careful disapproval. He glares back, and dares them to speak up when they feel that they have fallen half as far as he. The loss of his facade of lies leaves him ashamed, the loss of his team alone, the loss of his magic...

Well. If there is a word for the way he feels with magic crippled, Loki has certainly never heard it. It is the cold, implacable glow of a light released to Valhalla. It is a scream lost among the stars. And with a feeling like that erupting behind his eyes, Loki finds he can only hold on for so long. "What would you do if you woke up one morning and found that all your strength was gone?"

Rogers blinks, as if uncertain that he is truly being addressed, and hovers over the stove as if moving to stir the batter will make the question evaporate. "I'm sorry?"

Still surprised at his own question, Loki pauses a while before explaining. The world is a bit blurred at the edges, and strangely prone to glowing. Perhaps he should have let Natasha hide the painkillers. "It's true, is it not, that you were once weak and sickly? A small man who could never hope to win a fight by any natural power?

"And you were given a chance, yes? You owe your might to a potion rendered you by a man whose secret is now lost to time. You owe your life to a-an experiment."

The captain's eyes are stormy where they search Loki’s for malice. There is none to be found, only...that screaming feeling, the painkillers haven't managed to numb that. "I've never heard it put so bluntly before, but yeah, I guess you're right."

"If someone could...could take it away from you. If you became that helpless man again. What would you _do_?" Suddenly, he realizes what exactly it is he wants to say. What do _I_ do, Captain? The feeble sentiment burns like bitter acid.

Worse yet, he seems to understand. "Weakness isn't a curse, you know." Damn him, damn him and his sympathetic eyes. "It's just another obstacle to work around. I would...I'd find a way." In acknowledgement of the fact that neither party is really talking about him, Steve goes back to stirring the batter with practiced rigor. Little drops of it decorate the countertops. "The serum isn't me. It's part of me, but it's...I'm more than just an experiment."

"You would fight regardless?"

"It's not really about whether you can win. It's more about doing the right thing." There's a sudden, absurd notion that flashes before Loki's eyes, of not letting impossibilities weigh on him. Turning a fall into a flight, spitting in the face of practicality, turning up to a fight with no armor and no glitz, and no...no magic.

Something twists in the back of his ribcage, and Loki snarls, pounding his fist against the tabletop like a petulant child. There's another twinge just as his skin makes contact, and somewhere, a wire connects.

The whole kitchen is flooded in green light, and the concussive blast of raw power echoes in Loki's ears as if from a great distance. It's hard to hear over the rush of blood pounding in his head.

Eyes wide, both gazes drift to the scorch marks burnt into the wood of the table. Rogers blinks again, pancake batter dripping gently down his face.

"Apologies. This has, eh...never happened to me before," excuses Loki. Sparks dart across his palm, and a slow smile spreads over his face without his consent.

_He's back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That scene with Pepper's here: http://the-dreaming-grass.tumblr.com/post/101670410155/


	4. Chapter Three

_it may sound absurd, but don't be naive--even heroes have the right to bleed_

*

While he keeps many of his opinions, among other things, largely to himself, Loki makes no secret that he does not trust Nicholas Fury. His organization's treatment of an asset as dangerous as the cosmic cube does wonders to solidify this dislike. But, as with so many of the things Loki finds distasteful and difficult to avoid, he and his are necessary, however unfortunately.

"Go on, then," he grumbles to the trickster, not making eye contact -- oh, yes, and the eyepatch. Loki could certainly have done without the eyepatch-- as he gestures to the chair opposite his desk. "Have a seat."

Loki does, simply because there's no way out of it save sheer insubordination, and predictably Fury himself stands. A blind fool could tell which way the balance of power shifts. In _furiating_. "You wanted to see me?"

Fates help them all if they wish to imprison him now. The world has seen what Loki was capable of, and anyone with half a sense of that power wants it on their side. Surely they would be willing to overlook the blood on his hands for the promise of his allegiance.

Only, his current probationary status rather disproves that notion. Loki flashes a bitter smile.

"Agent Walker, if it were up to me, you'd be warming up a room in Forty-Two. A Hulk-proofed one."

As it's no more than expected, Loki swallows and forces himself to lean back in the seat. "Does your world repay all its saviors with such warmth and gratitude?"

If Fury appreciates his razor wit, he makes no sign of it. "There's a whole new Ghost Town in the middle of New Mexico says you aren't exactly the hero type. You don't play nice with the other kids." Fury leans in close, letting Loki glimpse the report inside the file in his hand. "Your track record at following orders is appalling, you're certifiably insane, Coulson picked you up fresh off of an attempted heist against SHIELD..."

"I just wanted a closer look," he fibs, trying to reach for the file and cursing as Fury slams it shut. "And insane? I wouldn't say--"

" _But_." Fury's eye narrows perceptibly, and Loki stills, crosses his arms over his chest defensively. "It has been brought to my attention," his expression sours, and Loki wishes he could have been a part of _that_ conversation, "that if I wanted a team of only the most worthy, pure heroes to call themselves the Avengers, I'd be looking at Captain Rogers on a solo mission." Loki exhales like a bellows in relief, only for his next breath to catch in his chest as Fury continues, "As I'm sure Agent Coulson would agree, that doesn't quite fit the terms of the original plan. So it looks like I'm stuck with you dishonest motherfuckers."

For a long moment, Loki is very, very still, certain that one wrong move will upset the balance of fate and he'll live out the rest of his endless days in some windowless cell, gone completely senile with restless boredom. _Please_ , he thinks, and wonders who exactly he's asking.

"That means fine, you get your team back, Liesmith," growls Fury. "Now get the hell out of my office."

*

They know, the moment he returns, stepping out of the elevator with shaking hands. Damn them, they all know. Loki scans their faces with a mix of shock and wonder, and an uncontrollable grin spreads over his face.

"Welcome back, fearless leader," says Clint, and both Rogers and Natasha are wearing matching proud smiles, and Pepper holds a pastry that's burnt nearly beyond recognition and still smoldering, and Banner...

Well. Banner doesn't look too disappointed, at least. He'll work his way into his good books somehow, or they'll learn to keep their animosity from bleeding onto the battlefield.

"We all marched up to Fury's office together," Natasha explains, over paper plates of Pepper's blackened dessert affair, and Loki can barely contain a burst of laughter at the thought. "Told him to shove his double standards up his ass if he could fit it next to his head. Banner and Potts had to leave twice. Even Steve called him a hypocritical bastard."

"Banner?" Not the same Banner who'd left Loki-shaped dents in the floor of the Helicarrier before the battle of Manhattan?

Natasha looks at him through two raised eyebrows and a knowing smirk. "We trust the calls Coulson made. All of us."

"Coulson was an idiot," Loki seethes. He's seen the footage, taking on a fully armed Stark with a weapon he didn't even know how to fire. Bullheaded bravery like that almost deserved the hole punched clear through his chest.

She stares straight through him, and shakes her head, and suddenly it's too hot in the penthouse, too crowded, too loud, too much. Mumbling some excuse about medication that they both know for an exceptionally poor lie, he ducks out of the room, takes the stairs three at a time.

*

There is, of course, a part of Loki which never ceases screaming _nonodon'tpleasenottheroofnononoNO_ , and begs and pleads and sobs while the rest of him studiously ignores its cries. It's pointless to let something as pathetic as his own irrationality dictate his movements.

Still, most people wouldn't take the need to face one’s fears to quite the excess that he does. Apparently that claim of insanity does hold some water. But that's nothing Loki does not know already. He sighs, and shifts on the ledge, and wants to watch something fall from a hundred stories and shatter into dust when it meets the ground, simply because he's a little bit broken.

It's almost too easy to remember what the stars had looked like, swirling around him in blinding lines of light and motion. But these are not even the same stars.

"I gotta say, it's awfully considerate of you, having a death wish," says the voice over his left shoulder, high and flat. "Saves me a lot of trouble in dry-cleaning bills. Do you have any idea how long it takes to polish this suit? And don't get me started on bloodstains and underarmor."

It had been a good day. Trust a nosy supervillain to ruin it. "Your vanity baffles the mind, Stark."

"Pot, kettle, Narcissus," he drawls, and there's a heavy thud that tells Loki he's landed. "No one with a hair routine that lasts over an hour should be allowed to talk about vanity."

"Thirty seconds," Loki argues, standing, because he's not going over that edge, more to spite Stark than anything, and there's a history with this tower and he and Loki and defenestration attempts, as he recalls. "Magic."

"Handy stuff you have there. How much does it do, exactly? Illusions, big explosions, stroking your...vast ego. What is it, a universal remote?"

"I'm a man of many talents."

Stark's smile is near-manic as he steps slowly forward. "But can you fly?" Loki falters, tries to dive for the alarm, but a gauntleted hand catches him in mid-air, and then he's rising higher and higher, grasping at the Iron Man in a panic as his feet leave solid surfaces behind, _damn damn damn_.

He finally catches hold of the metal arm, fingers scrambling for purchase on the smooth surface. The visor is cold and robotic, but its eyes _burn_ , exactly like Stark's. He stops rising, leaving them trapped in an awkward and perilous embrace, the gauntlet fisted in the front of Loki's collar the only real thing separating him from the inevitable force of gravity. He curses the air blue in several languages, staring down at the city below. In the dark, it almost seems like the lights below reflect the stars above, and he doesn't know if its worse to imagine his bones shattering against the concrete or imagine that he'll fall forever and never land.

"I'll take that as a no," Stark says.

Loki glares daggers through the visor, and tries to pretend he isn't clinging like a lovesick maiden on top of everything else.

"Oh, that's too bad. Looks like you're shit out of luck." Stark's grip loosens just enough to make Loki's heart stutter to a momentary halt, then tightens again. The suit cocks its head to the side mockingly. "Unless, of course, you were to ask _very nicely_."

He's right, of course, in telling Loki that he can only escape if he uses his words. However, Loki has no intention of using the ones he really wants to hear. Some indignities are simply not to be borne. "Make me," he dares openly.

The visor raises again, almost hesitantly, and it seems he's managed to surprise and delight Stark all at once. "Wanna run that by me again, sweetheart?"

This is _exactly_ the sort of behavior that usually ends in a set of unpleasant stitches or a hammer blow to the head. Somehow Loki always manages to slip back into old habits. "That's my bargain," he explains, realizing fully what a terrible position for bargaining he holds, and re-evaluates, "More of a challenge, really."  
 _Unbelievable_ , Stark's eyes say, but all the same his reply of "Go on," rings eagerly.

"You waste your words in an effort to have me plead mercy, when you know that I have simply unfathomable depths of _potential_ , Stark. Stop with the threats and the posturing, and _persuade_ me." Loki decides that it's a fairly well put-together speech for a man dangling over the precipice of certain doom.

Stark's eyes bore into his face with a remarkable degree of dangerous intent, which leads directly to Loki's first clue that he might have a...a bit of a _thing_ for danger. Really the first clue should have been the Tesseract incident, or possibly the past few centuries worth of breakneck impossible schemes and adventures that have led to countless near misses with death and more than a bit of fun.

Perhaps there were more grounds to that file of Fury's than he'd initially conceded. Insane just didn't cover it.

"You assume I want you alive at all."

"Oh, I assume," says Loki.

The problem with this sort of self-confidence he strives to maintain is that tiny little margin for error, which presents itself naked, painted purple, and dancing circles around Loki's head the moment Stark smiles and drops him.

\--Loki doesn't scream, chiefly because he can't find the breath for it and he thinks it likely that his heart has either exploded in his chest or vanished entirely. He falls, and he grabs at the air vainly, and his eyes are wide and unseeing as the world tilts dangerously and the sky flies past him with blurring speed. It can't be happening again, never again, he'd promised himself--

And catches him again, the sudden jolt of interrupted terminal velocity rattling his spine and forcing a hoarse shout from his throat.

"But the threats are so much more _fun_ ," says Stark cheekily.

Snarling, Loki offers his own example of a proper threat. "I am going to tear your swelled head from your shoulders and _shove it up your nose_." The Iron Man levels him a considering look, but his grip around Loki's midriff holds this time around.

"Unfathomable potential, eh?" His feet skim the treetops, which is good, but solid ground is better. "Alright, Agent, I'll bite. You got your challenge."

Loki's ire ebbs into something almost tinged with relief. In a Faustian sort of way, that is. The final drop to earth is short and gentle, and he lands with all the feline grace of an acrobat, before hurrying to append a, "Wait!"

"Time's diabolical schemes, and we don't wanna waste those."

"Parameters."

"Rules?" Stark snorts, nose wrinkling in disgust, but he hasn't left yet. "Ugh." Personally, Loki has a fondness for the things, if only for the opportunity to pick out loopholes. Perhaps they two aren't quite so similar after all.

"Not many," Loki concedes. "You don't kill me, and I don't kill you. We battle with words and wits only."

"That it?" says Stark, and his eyes flash. That's about the moment Loki's brain catches up to his mouth, and he's struck momentarily dumb with the sheer enormity of the hole he's conveniently dug for himself.

It's a damn good job that Loki's somewhat of an expert at treading carefully and tricking the world into ignoring that yes, that is him in the bottom of a large pit, holding a shovel. "That's it."

There's no going back now, at any rate.  
*

"Where did you get to?" Rogers asks, that strange, motherly concern of his set in the pulse of his jaw.

Loki hides the tremble of his fingers, shoving them deep in his pockets and smiling innocently. "Just clearing my head."

The Avengers draw their own assorted conclusions from this. None of them are right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A really fantastic illustration of the rooftop scene can be found here: http://the-dreaming-grass.tumblr.com/post/101669935160/


	5. Chapter Four

_it's alright; you can all sleep sound tonight, i'm not crazy or anything_

*

Because Stark is a showman, and showmen bide their time with a greater level of careful caution than most master assassins, the next month passes without incident. Well, there are the usual genocidal maniacs and crazed scientists and power-hungry petty criminals to contend with, but the Iron Man waits and watches, just out of sight. More than once, Loki's vision is torn from the frenzy of battle to some distant speck on the horizon, or some peripheral flash of gold, and, on several occasions, the suspicious flash of a hidden camera.

Off-duty, it's more difficult to notice. But Loki has a keen eye.

Still, the challenge he issued has all but faded from his mind when things start to get _really_ interesting on Midgard. It happens like this:

"Have you considered putting your ego on a diet, man?" Clint Barton leans in over the back of the couch, his loud voice brash and entirely unapologetic. Loki scowls, cradling the remote closer as he shifts to one side, allowing Hawkeye to clamber over the couch and perch beside him. "This is getting freakin' ridiculous."

"--vigilante group known as the 'Avengers' arrived on the scene just in time to intervene, allowing emergency medical personnel to relocate and treat the wounded as they engaged the robot creatures," continues the reporter, her dark skin radiating with childish excitement that borders on a full blush. There's a particularly dashing clip of Loki diving through a window to tackle one of the mechanical perpetrators to the ground. "While extensive property damage occurred to the bank itself, casualties were minimized due to the team's heroic efforts."

Barton snorts. "We left a couple of columns standing. I don't see what their problem is."

"Dreadfully garish things they were, too. I'd say we did them a favor," he agrees, feeling uncharacteristically like the cat who'd gotten both cream and canary.

"Like you didn't drop them on top of the robots because you thought it would look cool!"

"It did rather, didn't it?"

Raising an eyebrow, the archer makes a grab for the remote, which Loki dodges. "Diva," he accuses pointedly, as the starstruck newscaster goes on to speculate some very obviously incorrect theories about the origin of the robots.

"Not quite," Loki explains, pointing to himself; "God," and then the newsreel, "Worship."

"Yeah, but you aren't really..." Barton refutes, and Loki shoots him a smug look, which prompts a half-incredulous cough. "What, seriously?"

Loki continues to look smug until Barton tackles him, trying vainly to wrest the remote from his grip. Executing several evasive maneuvers at once, Loki lands heavily on the carpet, exhaling in a _whoosh_ and laughing without breath as Barton flips over the opposite side. "You _ass_! Give that here!" the archer shrieks.

"I don't think I will, thank you."

"Oh, you don't, huh?" He knows the rhythm of the archer's body, anticipates the lunge and adjusts to avoid being pinned by the couch. The tentative first notes of a ringtone drift from somewhere a few rooms over.

"Temper, temper," he chides. "That's just rude."

"This is more important than you getting off to your adoring public, Walker. Orange is the New Black is on in five minutes."

"And I am watching the news."

"Not if I have my way, you're not."

"I am not the one who broke every television on your floor, Barton." The archer stares dubiously up at him from the headlock he's trapped in, and Loki amends, "Plausible deniability is your friend."

"No, actually, I'm pretty sure it's just yours."

"--News of a freak thunderstorm in New Mexico," Loki hears the reporter continue, and everything dims.

"The phone!" calls Natasha, from the hall outside, and with devastating suddenness Loki feels the whole world shift from its axis and return, relinquishing Barton's neck as he stumbles to his feet, wide eyes fixed on the television screen.

"The unexplained storm cloud touched down outside Las Cruces not half an hour ago. As of this moment, what we have is almost pure speculation, but witnesses have claimed that the storm sprang up out of nowhere, and vanished again with alarming speed, leaving only this bizarre scorch mark behind."

"Ha! Victory!" Barton snatches the remote from the floor, and the image onscreen changes from the blurred circle of twisting runes to some advertisement full of smoke and mirrors. But the damage is already done. "Hey, make me some popcorn while you're up, will you?"

Loki huffs a weak, mirthless laugh as he turns to leave. There is nowhere to run, of course, but its not as if he could bear to wait and simply let fate catch up with him at long last. And it's working too, he's almost through the door to the elevator when Natasha calls after him, phone in hand. "Fury wants to see you."

*

This has to be Stark's fault, somehow, he thinks, and then he steps into the briefing room and neatly loses all capability of thought.

 _It's him_. Loki spares a moment to chastise himself for being taken so completely aback at the thought. Who else would it _be_? Who else would go to such lengths as these to...to stick his nose in where it wasn't _wanted_ , bring down a bit of literal rain on his proud little parade. "You," he tries to hiss, or spit, or at very least accuse, but more likely he sobs.

Thor turns that piercing blue gaze on him, and it's too much and it _hurts_. "Brother?" he says, so bright and hopeful and exactly the way he always used to say it, as though nothing had ever changed between them, and nothing ever could.

 _I'm not your damn brother_ , he needs to say; _Don't call me brother like you aren't here to take everything away from me, again_ , he tries to say; _I missed you so much_ he wants to say.

Instead, Loki takes the time-tested easy way out, and falls as his knees lock under him. But this time, Thor catches him, wraps his broad arms around him and pulls him close. "Loki," he says, relief plain in his voice, but also pain. "I thought you dead."

He's shaking. Possibly the both of them are. Still, ten or fifteen biting comments spring to the tip of Loki's tongue. "So did I," he decides, settling for the wretched truth. Caught equally between the urge to run and the urge never to leave the awkward, one-sided embrace, he mumbles a soft curse and pushes Thor away. "You'll smother me, you oaf," he grumbles.

The golden buffoon chuckles amiably and not a little hoarsely. "I missed you, too."

*

There's something about Forty-Two that sends shivers up Loki's spine. The subtly unnatural flicker of the lights overhead, perhaps, or the silent guards posted at every corner of each endless stretch of blank hallway.

Possibly, it's just the occasional flicker of a feeling that makes Loki wonder whether he's really on the right side of all that glass.

He waits outside the cell as long as he dares, very pointedly not asking himself why he's even thinking about doing this in the first place. The guards level him suspicious looks as he paces the hall, brows drawn up in frustration before spinning and abruptly coming to a halt before the most heavily guarded door. A firm hand grips his arm in warning. "The prisoner is allowed no visitors," says the guard, no variation in his robotic tone.

Smiling grimly, Loki lifts a hand and lets green sparks play across his long, thin fingers. "Of course, my mistake," he cedes, in a honey-layered bass that rumbles lower than his voice is usually capable. "That must be why no one has been here, all day. Not a soul came or went. Certainly not me."

Relaxing by degrees, the guard's grip releases, and he steps away, stony eyes looking right through Loki as he slips from their minds. Fury would have his head for that. Just one more thing to feel guilty about, later.

The inner chamber is divided neatly in twain by a sheet of glass, or something much stronger cleverly disguised as glass. The occupant of the cell's other half makes no motion to rise as Loki makes himself comfortable, leaning back against the wall with seidr still glowing in his eyes. He waits. To speak first would be to concede defeat, not to mention breaking pattern.

"Well, fuck me if it isn't the great Liesmith himself," announces Stark with no small measure of glee in his smile, his gaze sliding slow and nonchalant from the camera mounted above the door to Loki beside it. "Remind me to ask for an autograph when I'm allowed paper for good behavior."

"Lovely accommodations you have here," he nods, looking the place up and down with an expression of mock consideration. "If a bit humble. Still, I hear prison bars are in this season. And it builds character, of course." When he'd perfected the tone of the confident hero Loki would be hard pressed to recall, but the forced self-assuredness calms his nerves.

"Not quite up to par with your average evil lair, but it sure beats  most caves," Stark agrees, patting  the wood frame of his cot fondly. "You should really give it a try sometime." The look he gives Loki is all flashing teeth and something which could nearly pass for bedroom eyes. "So, what brings you all the way down here? I didn't peg you for the gloating type."

"Why, the pleasure of your august company, Mr. Stark." _If you imagine that I'm going to tell you,_ he says with a tilt of his eyebrows, _you will be disappointed_.

"Flattery will get you anywhere, cupcake, but would you happen to have a drink on you?"

There's a purpose there, he knows. People like Stark know better than to admit what they want and suffer seeing it used against them. Still, on the sheer _principle_ of the thing... "Not a drop," Loki sighs, and pulls the stopper from a hastily conjured decanter. He lets it breathe a moment before pouring himself a fingerful, then allows both stopper and bottle to disappear, still sparking faintly.

He takes a sip. It's not a bad vintage, for an illusion.

Stark only snorts faintly and stares like he's made some kind of a point, his black eyes boring through the glass wall with near enough heat to melt rock. "You're good at this," he admits, oddly gleeful. "Playing the bad cop to Fury's good cop. He offered me magazines."

There is, as always, something disquieting in his smile. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Surely the bad cop is the one who struck you from the sky with a bolt of lightning?" Loki spares a careful glance to each of Stark's hands, in case something unexpected slips from his sleeves, or more accurately in anticipation of the move they both know he's planning to make. Iron Man does not suffer himself to remain a prisoner for long.

"You and I both know that the mighty Thor couldn't talk his way out of a paper bag, nevermind conduct an interrogation." He taps a finger against the cot again, then stands. "You're right, this isn't about about good cop, is it? Fury's given up on sending Agent Romanoff to bat her eyelashes at me, and you're second best."

"You really think so little of me, Stark? I'll have you know that I consider myself a master seductor," says Loki without thinking. He drags his tongue swiftly across his lower lip to illustrate this point. Stark follows the movement with noticeable interest.

"...just one tiny little bow, for me?" he pleads mournfully, the tips of his fingers brushing the glass. "Just kneel a little bit. Bend _one_ knee, even?"

"Business first," chides the trickster. The empty glass disappears with a faint popping sound, leaving him free to stand and shift to mirror Stark. "How are you planning to escape?"

Instead of the expected wide-eyed and innocent look, Loki gets a shrug and a secretive smirk. "I was hoping you'd tell me, sweetheart."

Incredulity has always been a strong point of Loki's, but Stark's statement inspires such a blatant, nonplussed doubt that the resulting eyebrow lift could sear a man's flesh from his bones at twenty paces. Impressive even by the usual standards of a self-aware sarcastic bastard. "I'm not sure you've quite got the idea of how this works," Loki begins, slowly. "As I'm the one who put you in that cell, I am in no hurry to assist your leaving it."

"Uh-uh! Thanks for playing, better luck next time," he interjects, thumping noisily on the glass with one hand to punctuate whatever inner victory he believes he has won. "You had nothing to do with putting me up here. That's all on your big brother and his euphemistic hammer of doom. I was there, there was lightning."

Loki must flinch, because he gets closer again, eyes narrowed and searching. "You don't strike me as a lightning kind of guy." As if he needs reminding. That's something worth ignoring now and taking out on a punching bag later on. Perhaps he'll get lucky and some foolish mortal with a gun will give him an excuse.

"What is light without a little darkness?" equivocates Loki, with an entirely false, thin smile. His fingertips trace a nonsense pattern on the glass between them.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing, darkness is damn well better off without the other thing," he says. "And I wouldn't have pinned you as the type to enjoy life in some bigger guy's shadow, either."

"And what makes you so certain you know what sort of man I am, Tony Stark?"

"I pay attention. You're sort of fascinating."

The blatant sincerity of this reply does something unbidden to the rhythm of Loki's breathing, and his lungs half-hitch in the middle of their next exhalation. Perhaps it is not he doing the eyelash-batting for this round, because he finds himself pulling away out of a sheer need for distance, never mind that it feels far too close to backing down. "I suppose you consider the two of us equal opposites as well? I've heard several _enthralling_ theories."

Stark always smiles, and it never seems to grow any less disconcerting to watch his lips curl back and show those neat white teeth. "What, the whole funhouse-mirror, evil twin thing? I'm not big into moral absolutes." Slouching and turning away with an air that clearly means he's done talking, the supervillain sits back down on his cot, tapping his fingers against the frame.

Feeling more confused than enlightened, Loki makes for the outer door with magic warming in his fingertips. He pulls up short, fingers on the latch, when Stark calls after him. "You can't have what you want and be a good man, you know."

Looking over one shoulder with a calculated expression of neutrality which simmers beneath the surface, he grunts softly. "And if what I want is to be a good man?"

There's a knowing gleam to his dark eyes when Stark shrugs. "Let me know how that works out, sugar. I'll be waiting right here." There. Now they both have exchanged lies.

*

He pauses with a forkful of pizza halfway to his mouth, realization dawning with the usual unfortunate timing.

Not only is Stark going to escape, he's already managed to secure Loki's aid. _Damn_.

They did repeat, at great length, five or six times during the first briefing alone, that it was perhaps unwise to leave a fingerprint within reach of a prisoner. Which was, of course, why he'd gone ahead and touched the glass anyway.

He'd played right into his hands, of course, but that was all Stark had ever really intended. All those words, little mirrored movements, encouraging taps on the glass...it should have been obvious from the beginning. But nothing ever really is, is it?

Still. Loki has been played for the fool, and he can damn well exact payment.

*

What should happen: _Loki speaks to Rogers in hushed whispers, as he always does when speaking a bitter truth, and the whole team is called in for a brief meeting full of incomplete apologies and stifled anger._

_Pepper's eyes burn. Barton's jaw clenches hard enough to jar fillings. Thor is disappointed._

_Stark is met with a battalion of SHIELD agents as he tries to leave--through the front door of Forty-Two, chiefly to add insult to injury. He stares at Loki like he has never seen him before. It's less satisfying than he anticipates._

...But then, Loki has never been orthodox. He considers a dozen lies, and discards them one by one. Better to say nothing at all. Actions are the measure of a man. And yet, he realizes, with his gun aimed at the door to Stark's cell and his face hidden in shadow, he has never been one for action. He tries to rationalize the way that he curses and pockets the weapon at the first rattle of the door. Any second now, he would make his move. Any moment.

Stark does not see him watching when he slips through the portal and takes down the guard with some weapon he's crafted from one of the cell cameras. It would take no effort at all to paralyze him with a well-aimed blast of magic. And yet...

And yet Loki watches him slip away into the shadows, and raises no quarrel.  


	6. Chapter Five

_men weren't meant to ride with clouds between their knees, i'm just a man in a funny red sheet_

*

The televisions flicker and cut out--everywhere, every one in the whole city--and darkness lingers just long enough to inspire the proper degree of unease.

When the screens return to life, they're occupied by a man in a metal mask. "Hello, boys and girls," says Tony Stark, with his own brand of cheerful malice. "Lets play, shall we?"

*

"He's not in the cells?" There's the first question asked at the debriefing. "Because correct me if I'm wrong, but Stark should definitely be a little less at large than that."

"Maybe he is in the cells," supplies an unhelpfully helpful Banner, who then swallows and clarifies, "I'm sure he could find a way to send the message from inside. Stark doesn't need to be free to cause trouble."

"That didn't look like Forty-Two, that looked like Queens."

"Is this really important?" interrupts Rogers, with steel in his eye. "As you can see, Iron Man has left our custody. More to the point, he just issued us a direct challenge."

"Then we shall meet him with storm and fire," Thor swears, pounding a powerful fist against the table. The general trend is a somewhat less enthusiastic agreement.

"Not so fast," says Natasha. "This could very well be a trap--"

"Of course it's a trap." Loki breaks his silent vigil in the back corner of the room, and his jaw pulses ever so slightly. The Avengers turn to him with expressions of mixed surprise and foreboding. Muttering voices all fall silent, because something in his eyes tells them all that their fearless leader is afraid. Shaking his head to clear it, Loki straightens his spine. "However, we know it, and doubtless he knows we know. That makes it an even fight."

"Seven of us and only one of him?" says Clint, cracking his knuckles meaningfully. There are some offenses that are never fully repaid, and mind control is one of them. "This is gonna be _fun_."

*

"Are you having fun yet?" Natasha asks, having only just executed an inspiring backflip over the smoldering wreckage of a car.

"That's _cheating_ ," Clint scowls up at the army of empty suits hovering over their heads, like a flock of ravens blotting out the sun, only with enough firepower to erase a small country more or less from existence.

Loki privately concurs with the archer, but really, what more could one expect from Tony Stark? The man considers playing by the rules too mundane, and holds humility in the regard of a cardinal sin. He _would_ create an army of his own duplicates.  Truthfully, Loki would wonder why Iron Man and dear Victor von Doom never joined forces if he did not know both of their egos to be far too swelled to withstand such a partnership.

Which does beg the question of why Stark is so intent on drawing Loki to his side. Still looking to see him bow, most likely.

The empty suits begin to converge on Hulk, and Loki marks their formation with practiced care, traces each movement on the map of his mind. After so many hundred years, strategy comes near as easily as breathing. He dives for one as it passes, driving a knife deep into the metal plates which form its back, and tackles the thing to the ground with extreme prejudice. While no pained groan sounds from within--the marble is not under this cup, sorry, better luck next time--the eye sockets glow with a dangerous light which tells Loki that Stark is watching from somewhere far off.

Cheerfully, the trickster offers him a one-fingered salute.

The thrusters spark and nearly throw Loki from the suit's back as the whole ensemble shoots away like a bullet from a gun. One brief collision with an office building and he does experience a vague burst of motion-sickness, but considers himself rather the victor over the immobile, scattered fragments of suit.  
Rogers, he cannot fail to notice, is proving rather less fortunate. Flagging, even, though if Captain America can be said to tire at all it _would_ be under the extenuating circumstance of boxing with a flying titanium robot. All the same, Loki has to suppress a tut when he shouts a warning of "Down, Captain!" and buries a throwing knife in the center of the chestpiece.

It's like a glowing blue target, honestly. Loki has always meant to inform Stark of that particular oversight. There are no sparks, this time, but the armor emits a faint whine and collapses with Loki's blade still protruding from its heart. Then, of course, it explodes like a veritable supernova.

Rogers' shield is over the both of their heads even before the ground shakes properly, but it's a close thing. "I had him on the ropes," gasps the captain, with his usual shell-shocked mumble.

Loki raises a singed brow. "Not from where I was--oof!"

One leg collapses beneath him, weighed down by invisible chains suddenly pulled taught. Then an arm, and the other leg sink to the ground. Another indignant yelp is knocked out of Loki by a blow that catches him under the ribs, and the unexpected weight encases him like a close-fit tomb. Uncomprehending, afraid even, he  stares up at Rogers, who looks back with wide eyes until the faceplate slams shut and plunges Loki into darkness. The suit, one should never take their eyes off of the suits, because even shattered into pieces they don't stay down.

He knows he is rising with the surety of a man very familiar with the bounds of gravity, and struggles against the cocoon that has enveloped him until it spits him out, as expected, at Stark's feet.

Well, his vision is returned, at least, if not the use of his limbs. Or more importantly, his fists. "I suppose you find this amusing," he growls.

"I don't know, the look on your face was pretty Youtube-worthy."

"One of these days, it will be me throwing you through a window. Stark," he promises, struggling vainly against the suit's hold.

"You say that like you really think I'll be giving you the chance."

"Your cooperation is helpful but unnecessary. Loose my arms and I'll show you firsthand how I always get what I want. I'm a very persistent person, Stark."

It sends a chill up Loki's spine to meet Stark's intent gaze, as always. Any semblances of an honest expression on a face like his are few and far between, and he has no idea what to make of the spark of hope he can see kindling deep in those eyes. "Drop the knife and you've got yourself a deal," he says, all at once, like the words are too much to be contained any longer.

Loki scowls at being caught out, but uncurls his fingers from the hidden blade as the fragmented suit retracts.

"Okay, Liesmith." Stark's ever-present smile returns with a vengeance as his fingers twitch at his sides. "Let's dance." He lunges first, which spares Loki the trouble.

He blocks the clumsy blow with ease, and moves in closer to counter. Stark is slow and uncertain outside of his armor, but near as persistent as Thor wrestling a lost cause. Loki nearly doubles him over twice with a well-aimed fist to the gut, and still he keeps coming, shrugging off each hit and landing a few of his own.

It comes as something of a surprise to see them so evenly matched, and not entirely a pleasant one, so Loki wipes the red away from his split lip and pulls a fifth ace from his sleeve. Expediency for the impatient is hardly the same thing as dishonesty. Or something like that.

Now, when Stark goes down, he stays down, thanks to the blade at his throat. Loki is not in the habit of carrying just one knife, as he was not born yesterday. Narrowing his eyes, he lets the edge slip a little closer to skin than the average razor. "Now would be an appropriate time to beg for mercy."

Stark, for once caught completely off guard, stares. Then he exhales a breath caught midway between a laugh and a scoff, and raises his hands in surrender. "So what is it you want?" he asks, apropos of nothing. At Loki's uncomprehending look, he shrugs as slightly as possible, and explains. "You did mention that you always get what you want. So I assume you've got some idea of what that is. Come on, give me something, you're like some eerie ice robot. Facial expressions are an important social cue, didn't anyone ever tell you?"

"I don't see what business it is of yours," he criticizes coldly, and lets his gaze dart from Stark's face to the edge of the rooftop. Why is it always heights with him? "Besides, I could be asking you the same question." And of the two, Loki doubts he is the one who feels the most compelled to answer a question or two.

"Oh, absolution, mostly," Stark deadpans, then knocks the blade from Loki's hand with a very well-aimed blast from the battery in the center of his chest. And suddenly, there they are again, hovering above the city in a practice fast becoming routine and somehow no less terrifying for the repetition. "Do you really not know?" asks Tony Stark, with genuine doubt coloring his voice.

"Stark, I could not care less if the thing you wanted most was a ham sandwich just like mother used to make, now for Bor's sake will you _put me down or just kill me already--mmmph!_ "

Actually, after the initial shock, the kiss isn't altogether unpleasant. He's...gentle, almost, though certainly eager, and the hand not fisted in Loki's collar rests firmly on the back of his neck, not forcing but merely supporting and that about sums up the moment in which Loki realizes that he is, in point of fact, reciprocating. Also, he's completely doomed.

At some point, his eyes had fallen shut, and now they snap open wide. Stark pulls away with an altogether innocent air, but his lips are red and ever so slightly bruised, and somewhere down there a battle rages on but it's all Loki can do to hear past the roaring in his ears. "You..."  
The usual clever retort fails to spring to Stark's tongue--which organ Loki is very adamantly _not_ thinking about. Instead he simply waits, with something terrifyingly like hope shining in his eyes.

Falling, Loki is familiar with. The sensation in his stomach when he meets those eyes with that expression is not dissimilar.

"Food for thought," chimes the supervillain, as he regains his composure and drops Loki back to the rooftop, where he less lands than sprawls.

Doomed. Very doomed, indeed.


	7. Chapter Six

_and it's not easy to be me_

*

_You can't have what you want and be a good man, you know._

Damn him, how had he known? Even Loki hadn't known, not really. Though of course he prides himself on a tried and true ability to lie to anyone's face--himself included--and be none the wiser.

Which, come to think of it, is hardly the most heroic of traits. As Barton would so colloqially phrase it, _fucking damn it to hell_.  Loki snarls as he spins and kicks aimlessly at the hanging sandbag hovering before him. It doesn't quite burst, nor does it fly across the empty gym to crash against the wall opposite, but it's a near thing. As a pasttime, the appeal of beating the hell out of inanimate objects was never easy for Loki to understand. He doesn't understand it now; it's nowhere near enough to silence all the thoughts buzzing around his head.

_You can't have what you want and be a good man._

And what does he know of it? How can this one mortal, this one worthless droplet in a fast evaporating sea, how can he hope in his wildest dreams to know the mind of a _god_?

Just to prove...well, to prove something to himself, Loki's next punch sears a verdant, hissing hole in the sandbag. He watches the life pour out of it, and runs his tongue over the still-red cut on his lip, and swears again.

_What is it you want?_

He turns to leave, meaning to let the smoldering sandbag lie until someone takes pains to clean up the mess themselves, and catches the flash of something amidst the sand which doesn't quite belong. Loki squints with suspicion and foreboding before bending to retrieve it: a calling card.

"That ostentatious exaggeration of a _tin can_ ," he accuses the gilt gold lettering spelling out a cheeky _you know who I am_. The words retort with a sparkle of faux innocence, and Loki's narrowed eyes turn to faintly glowing slits. Rationally, he knows it must have fallen from his pocket. But has it ever before paid to be rational where Tony Stark is involved? He turns it over.

_Call me._

There are no numbers. It doesn't matter. A tendon twitches in Loki's jaw, and he nearly ignites the paper on reflex. While he does play by the rules as often as is necessary, the trickster hardly presumes to know what policy would dictate he do in this particular circumstance. Report something to Fury, most likely, and earn himself a seat in a very cozy cell by association.

Telling his team is out of the question, as half of the number (like Romanoff) would run to SHIELD and the other (Thor or even Barton) would encourage the both of them to run headlong into some disastrous and poorly planned confrontation. Either party would presume to be doing it for Loki's own good.

Once upon a time there was Coulson. But Stark lost him that recourse long ago.

Whatever it is that Loki wants, it's certain that his own good has never factored into it whatsoever. Which means, he decides, sliding the red-and-gold card into the pocket of his suit pants, that there is really only one person to be consulted.

*

"Good evening, Doctor Banner," Loki says, with a sickly-sweet grimace.

Animosity does not begin to cover the fear and mistrust and general air of incipient menace that permeates the spaces between the Liesmith and the Hulk. Loki smiles, and Banner takes a deep breath. He reads the berserker's file, and bitter dislike bubbles up from his core without preamble and froths, and froths. And Tony Stark, trapped in the very bowels of the Helicarrier, senses the potential chemical mixture of their interaction within only a few seconds, and remembers. And later there is an explosion, and a virus, and a lab with every exit blocked and both Loki and Banner trapped inside as SHIELD fends off an attack, and something boils over.

The beast leaves a dent shaped like Loki in a wall made of steel. That sort of interaction put a damper on the development of most relationships.

"What do you want?"

"Technically, I am your boss," Loki reminds him, with a smirk he would deny smirking. "So that's, 'What do you want, Sir?' Though I am partial to the occasional 'Your Majesty'."

Longsuffering, tired eyes stare blankly at him from across the lab table. "Look, I'm just going to get some more tea before we do this, okay?"

It's nothing more than Loki expected, but still irksome. "Must you?"

"Trust me," Banner drawls, lingering a moment with the kettle in his hand, "You'll like it better if I do." That's what root of it is, albeit a very small portion of the greater whole: all the subtle little threats. All the passive-aggressive turns of phrase that most would deflect without a thought but which Loki, still smarting from somewhere at the base of his spine, cannot help but understand.

"I require your aid." He had rather hoped that forcing the words from his tongue at the greatest possible speed would lessen their sting. Alas, he was mistaken.  
Banner whistles long and low, taking a positively thunderstruck draught of his Oolong. "Well. Never thought I'd hear that one."

"Yes, well, you are not likely to suffer the experience again," he equivocates, then drums his finger against the table with impatience. "It is rather an important matter."

The doctor cradles his teacup very like a dragon and his treasure hoard. "Okay, then," he sighs. "Why, exactly, do you want my help?"

Loki finds the words congealing in his throat, and forces them out with his jaw clenched. "It's to do with the matter of my resignation."

*

The midday sun flares off of the window glass at a hundred blinding angles, chiefly because there are so many windows to begin with. He settles down at the bar, laying the calling card face up on the marble surface and pouring himself a very stiff drink.

By the time Stark arrives, the sun's light has waned to a dull red-orange, and the decanter is considerably emptier. Loki watches him alight on the protruding penthouse balcony as though he owns the place, which could be argued either way, really.

"Agent Walker," he greets, with a respectful nod, as he sets the suitcase of folded armor down and takes a seat on the tall bar stool to his left.

Loki stands, moving to reach beneath the bar and procure a second glass. "Please, call me Loki," he corrects, and holds it up to catch the fading light. "Can I interest you in a drink?"

"It'll do for starters." Stark's eyes linger over the line of his jaw with such a focus that he can almost palpably feel it. "You know, I think this falls somewhere under the umbrella of fraternization," he points out, once Loki has placed the drink in front of him.

"Yes, well." Leaning forward with his weight propped on his elbows, Loki tilts his head to the side invitingly. "Rules are so _overrated_ , aren't they?" Stark seems to appreciate the sentiment, if the way he cackles just before he leans in to snog Loki senseless from across the bar is any indication. While the trickster considers himself something of a creative spirit, carnally, there is only so much enjoyment to be gotten out of a kiss which causes a marble countertop to dig painfully into his stomach. More's the pity.

His hand fisted in Loki's sleeve, Stark grins, positively triumphant. "You don't know how long I've waited to hear you say that, cupcake."

"Near as long as I've been meaning to say it, I expect," he admits, and places the half-filled glass in front of Stark, whose eyes are hungry, and who strikes him as decidedly not concerned with the promised drink so much as with doing enjoyable things to Loki's mouth.

"Finally figured out what it is you want?"

"It's not so simple as all that," corrects Loki, sliding back around the bar to seat himself next to the supervillain. "A man in my position does not have the luxury of putting his own desires first."

Taking a sympathetic sip of his liquor, Stark shakes his head. "It's like I've been trying to tell you. Good men don't get what they want."

For a moment, Loki stares at the liquid swirling around the bottom of the glass, and tries to reconcile his name with the word 'good'. He comes up disappointingly short. In point of fact, it's no easy feat even to understand what a good man is supposed to be. Certainly no one he knows.

"There is no such thing as a good man, my father used to say," he recalls, opening a particularly rancid can of worms quite without meaning to. "Nor a bad man. Only those who know themselves and those who know nothing at all."

If Stark marks anything of this revelation, it is deflected so quickly that Loki cannot tell. "King of the gods, right? Sounds like quite the gritty realist, your old man." He crunches a discourteous ice cube between his teeth, then pointedly tugs Loki into his lap. "Tell me more about those desires you've been suppressing?"

"Yes, don't let's discuss my father with your tongue in my mouth, Mr Stark." he agrees, moving with the rapid change of subject.

He mutters something like, "Call me Tony," against Loki’s mouth, which he chooses to ignore entirely. Things blur a bit after that, and its all he can do to keep at least part of his mind on the goal before him.

"You know, if it's taken you this long just to give up and _indulge_ a little, I can't help thinking you don't know yourself very well at all," Tony gasps, still recovering from the demonstrations of a kisser who's had centuries to really work at his technique.

"Not true," Loki scolds, scrapes teeth lightly across his ear, and pulls away far enough to list it out. "I'm a trickster and a liar, you know. Dishonest, insane, volatile, narcissistic...the list goes on."

"You know, they told me the same thing. I'm still looking for a second opinion."

"They called me a king, once," he admits, leaning back against the bar. The thought sits in the back of his mind, heavy and shining like gold, distorted slightly over time and distance, just enough to give the memory soft edges.

Nodding in acknowledgement, Stark tips his glass back and empties it in one smooth draught, then pierces Loki straight through with a dangerously purposeful _look_. "What do they call you now?" he asks. It's honestly a surprise he hasn't managed to notice yet.

"An Avenger," he answers simply, and stands. When Stark tries to follow, he becomes at long last aware of the thin chain looped around his wrists. A dawning expression of confusion, and then of rage, distorts his features.

The faintest spasm of guilt tightens in Loki's chest. He forces his mouth into a thin, mirthless smile, and casts his eyes down. The illusion flickers and dies, leaving the rest of the team free to step from the shadows and surround the bar. "Checkmate," says Natasha, with all the detached coolness he envies. And she has more history even than he with the mad genius.

Clint grimaces at him. "Hey, fearless leader, was all the tongue really necessary?"

Arms crossed, Loki shoots him the usual searing look, evidently taking his eyes off of Stark for one second too many. "I wouldn't do that, if I were you," he hears Banner growl too late, and the length of the chain wraps around his neck--

\--and pulls taut as the doppelganger fades into faint golden mist. Iron Man shrugs, and raises his cuffed hands, laughing with a bitter darkness Loki has not heard in his voice since the Tesseract and the helicarrier. "Cute, Liesmith. You're still going to pay for that, but I'll award points for cleverness." Quite suddenly, it's easy to remember who it was tore a hole through Phil Coulson with nothing more than a snort and a flick of the wrist.

Despite his usual predisposition for vengeful rage, Loki is surprised to feel nothing more than a blank, hollow pity. Stark lunges for his armor like a wounded animal cornered.

"No, Tony," says Pepper simply, and drops the scorched, smoking remains of the suit in its case. Her eyes blaze as bright as Loki has ever seen them, a supernova coursing beneath her skin. Watching the newly scrap metal twist and blacken, Stark's eyes are blazing too.

"The villain is vanquished," Thor announces, evidently somewhat behind the times, as he searches the team with confusion writ into the lines of his broad, honest face. "Should we not secure his arrest?"

"Not yet," the captain answers him. Over his shoulder, Loki and Barton share a long, pointed glance. After a moment or two, the archer sighs and lowers his bow. A slight, secretive smile plays at the corners of Natasha's mouth as she offers Stark a seat, which he takes carefully, gaze darting between each Avenger with an equal measure of wariness.

"Let me guess," he ventures, raising a brow with all the confidence of the hopeless. "Here comes the vengeance part?"

The Avengers stare back at him with matching expressions of grim resolution. "Not yet," Rogers repeats.

Baffled, but playing at an unphased cockiness which is no less than to be expected, his dark eyes fix on Loki. "We would have been good together, Agent," he mourns, with a soft smile.

Taking that as his queue, Loki passes a cursory glance of confirmation to all his teammates, and steps forward to circle Stark in his chair. Guilt and uncertainty still twist in the pit of his stomach, but he crafts his face into a perfectly neutral mask, and inhales deeply. "It falls to me," he says, with carefully measured speed, "to inform you of the exact terms of your arrest, Mr. Stark." In response, he raises an eyebrow, for the moment exercising the valuable right of silence, and Loki smiles thinly again, continuing, "You leave this room in one of two ways. The first is an armed jet bound for Forty-Two. But because we have experienced some difficulties with containment in that area, we have seen fit to introduce a second option, which you are free to choose at your discretion--"

"I don't know exactly _how_ deep you're planning to bury me, but you'd better double it for luck, honey," Stark interrupts.

Still turning an arrow over between his hands, Barton snorts audibly. Loki smothers a faint grin, and leans in over the bound villain’s shoulder. Somewhere, he decides, Phil Coulson is either crying with laughter, or rolling over in his grave. “Personally, I think it’s a fair offer,” he divulges, and stands straight again. “Tell me, Stark, have you ever given any thought to redemption? Because I'd like to offer you a job."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! 
> 
> In case you needed more reason to love my artist, here's some Loki costume design (battle regalia, super-spy uniform + iconic domino mask, and pajamas--there's a story there): http://the-dreaming-grass.tumblr.com/post/101671202545/
> 
> Lyrics in front of each chapter are from Superman by Five For Fighting, in case you didn't know.
> 
> If you think I made another reference, I probably did and I probably didn't realize I was doing it. 
> 
> Got questions? Got complaints? Got ideas? Got a crush? Leave a comment here or hit me up at dudepool.tumblr.com 
> 
> Also, bless you for reading this thing. Hope you had as much fun as I did writing it.


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